Chicken Breeds: Choosing Your Backyard Brood
(Page 2 of 6)
March/April 1976
By GT Klein
There are much larger breeds than the Rhode Island Reds and Barred Plymouth Rocks, but none is better suited for meat production. The larger breeds will not lay as many eggs. The broilers from these recommended breeds will reach the 2-1/2- to 3-pound weight in ton to twelve weeks, and they will have plump breasts and their carcasses will be well covered with meat. Most of the larger breeds are slow growing during this early period and at twelve weeks are big frame, bony birds not so well suited for broilers. They eventually make large birds, but this is of little importance to the average family.
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When to Hatch —"April chicks-September eggs" is a very good rule to remember. April is late enough so that even in northern states, cold weather is not a serious problem in raising the chicks. On the other hand, it is early enough to have the pullets laying in the early fall.
Pullets well fed will come into laying at five to six months of age. The calendar tells you that "April chicks-September eggs" is correct figuring. This brings them into laying for the high-priced eggs. If chicks are hatched in February or March, they will be laying in July or August, and that is all right, but they may not hold up well in their laying throughout the winter. They would be likely to neck-molt. Commercial poultrymen hatch any month of the year, but with homesteaders, March through May is best, with April as first choice.
The Blood Test for Pullorum Disease —One of the most deadly diseases of baby chicks is pullorum disease. It is one of those diseases that is passed from the hen to her chick through the hatching egg. It is a bacterial infection which a hen carries in her ovary. Unfortunately, it spreads very easily in an incubator at the time the baby chicks are hatching. Instead of affecting only the one chick which would hatch from an infected egg, the germs are blown about the incubator and they infect many chicks. It is a fatal disease and may kill from one-half to three-fourths of the chicks in a hatch.
Fortunately, a blood test for pullorum disease has been developed. By using it, the infected hens can be identified and removed from the flock before they have a chance to lay eggs that transmit pullorum disease. The United States Department of Agriculture sponsors a nationwide blood testing program to control this infection through the National Poultry Improvement Plan. This operates in practically every state. Flocks are blood tested and graded according to the amount of infection found to be present. These grades are as follows:
U.S. Pullorum Clean—100 per cent freedom of the disease on two consecutive tests at least six months apart.
U.S. Pullorum Passed—100 per cent freedom of the disease on one test made during the year immediately preceding the sale of stock.
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